Arianne Foks Attempt to Cover the Sky 05.06.2015-25.07.2015 20, rue Germain Pilon 75018 Paris
Arianne Foks Attempt to Cover the Sky 05.06.2015-25.07.2015 Galerie E.G.P is pleased to present the first solo show of artist Arianne Foks, from June 5 until July 25, 2015. This is the first time that the artist s drawings, collages and paper works will be exhibited. Arianne Foks lives and works in Paris and Brussels. She is already recognized in France and internationally for her work as a performance artist. On several occasions, she performed for art institutions (the 104 art center in Paris, Fonderie Darling in Montreal, Grimmuseum in Berlin), art galleries and festivals such as Rapid Pulse in Chicago and FRASQ organized by Le Générateur in Gentilly, France. For her performances and drawings, Arianne Foks uses actual everyday life or its fantasized version, in order to question reality. Her performances challenge our worldview by creating situations where the participant must face certain choices for instance, choosing between dying or eating, or accepting to write down his or her potential year of death in exchange of a pineapple. These at once absurd and concrete questions try to transform us; these poetic metamorphoses blur our limits between personal realities and fictions. Opening: Thursday, June 4, 2015, from 6 to 9pm Exhibition dates: June 5 July 25, 2015 Location: Galerie E.G.P 20, rue Germain Pilon 75018 Paris France Opening times: from Thursday to Saturday, 11am-7pm and by appointment Phone: + 33 (0)1 42 51 31 04 Website: Press contact: Katia Tosco contact@artegp.com Cover image: Aphrodite 116-125, 2015
The exhibition [ ] Creation, or better said, the shaping of matter, must have started in this central point, before extending gradually to an endless distance, to fill the infinite space, in the rest of eternity, of worlds and systems of worlds. Immanuel Kant, Theory of the Heavens, 1755 Arianne Foks drawings seem to be telling the story of an intimate cosmology. Greek gods and goddesses, major fictional, philosophical and art historical figures seem to be their guests, just like some old friends stopping by for a drink: in a casual, benevolent, cheeky and maybe slightly shameless way. An Aphrodite with a dark eyelid, an extravagant warrior ready to fight the Minotaur, a strange apparition at a Luncheon on the Grass Arianne Fok s art is haunted by their presence. These mythological and tutelary shadows mingle with her everyday ghosts, lovers and friends, conversations and memories that inhabit her. Myths, novels, poems are all veils meant to reveal as much as hide, expose as much as silence our fears, fantasies, desires and melancholies. Attempt to cover the sky or Attempt to cover the skin? A restless, funny and irreverent endeavor to take possession of the fascinating and overwhelming celestial vastness or to cover up and hide her body, her skin as a sensitive surface, a place of vulnerability and bashfulness? This mode of (un)veiling echoes the technique employed by the artist for her paper works: she uses lively felt pen strokes, golden-colored areas and collaged papers to cover fashion figures that become hardly recognizable. They look like they were struck by some Ovidian metamorphoses, under the imaginary auspices of Tracey Emin, Yvonne Rainer or David Bowie. From one drawing to another, through the prism of her graphic practice, Arianne Foks weaves the threads of her own tale of the origins.
Works Aphrodite à la paupière noire 81, 2015 collage, felt pen on coated paper, 49x34 cm
Aphrodite 116-125, 2015 collage, charcoal and felt pen on coated paper, 49x34 cm
Attempt to cover the sky, 2015 pastel, charcoal felt pen and varnish on Canson paper, 112 x 72 cm
Attempt to cover the sky (détail), 2015 pastel, charcoal felt pen and varnish on Canson paper, 112 x 72 cm
Cooling the lawn, 2015 collage on Japon paper, felt pen and varnish on coated paper, 47.5x36.5 cm
No need to be afraid ok, 2015 charcoal, felt pen and varnish on acid-free paper, 27.5x21 cm
Fighting the Minotaure, 2015 collage on Japon paper, felt pen on coated paper, 46.5x36.5 cm
Yvonne, Vanessa et les autres, 2015 Rotring and felt pen on cardstock paper, 46.5x30.5 cm
Sous le rose, 2005 felt pen on paper, 17.6x25 cm
La Déesse la chute 83, 2015 felt pen on coated paper, 34x49 cm
La planète Mars, 2015 gouache and felt pen on rotogravure, 34x24.5 cm
The Slope, 2015 charcoal and felt pen on acid-free paper, 27.5x21 cm
Biography Arianne Foks, born in 1982, is a multidisciplinary artist based in Paris and Brussels. Her primary medium is performance art but she also works with writing, drawing and photography. She graduated in 2007 from Toulouse School of Fine Arts and was a resident of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in China in 2006, and of the Cité Internationale des Arts de Paris in 2008. Since 2014 she has taken part in Les Réalisateurs, an artistic residency program designed by artist Fabrice Hyber at Nantes School of Art. Exhibitions 2015 : Attempt to Cover the Sky, Galerie E.G.P, Paris (FR) 2014 : Be My Guest (group show), Galerie E.G.P, Paris (FR) Launch of the artist-fanzine She Killed A Deer, Problem Library, San Francisco (US) 2012 : Backstage (coulisses dessinées de performances), Le Ventre de la Baleine, Paris (FR) Performances 2015 : Autour du film une conférence/performance, Auditorium du Musée d Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (FR) 2014 : Merci Non Merci, launch of Agent Double, le 116, Montreuil (FR) How to do things with words, The longest day, Zurich (CH) 2013 : Sehnsucht, titre provisoire, Festival FRASQ, Le Générateur, Gentilly (FR) Amuse Bouche, sign6, Brussels (NE) We-You-we always have to do something #1, Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago (US) Tombola Darling, Fonderie Darling, Montreal (CA) 2012 : Sleeping on top of basement floor, performance, Grimmuseum, Berlin (DE) 90 years, Not Ready Yet, Jangva Gallery, Helsinki (FI) Kiss my, Rapid Pulse Performance Festival, Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago (US) 2011 : Utopia Obsessed, in collaboration with Gim Gwan Cheol, Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn (US) 2010 : Dancing Horse(s) Loving Carrots, Festival Jeune Création, le 104, Paris (FR) A Snooty Foks, Art Paris, Grand Palais, Paris (FR) Artist website http://www.ariannefoks.com